A NOCTURNAL HUNTRESS 187 
pletion apparently, for it ended in a gruff gurgle. 
Girls were such nuisances sometimes! 
“ There’s a new voice in the chorus to-night,” 
Max whispered, linking his arm into Uncle 
John’s and snuggling beside him, as the latter 
seated himself on the porch bench. “We can’t 
make out what it is. We only hear it once in 
a while when there is a break between the toads’ 
chimes and the crickets’ chirps. It is a funny 
little sound, like a faint echo of Grandmother’s 
old spinning-wheel. Tommy says that it is 
merely the accompaniment; every now and then 
along with it we hear a shrill clicking note, put in 
like punctuation marks, sort of grand opera style, 
you know.” 
“Yes,” Uncle John nodded. “Very good 
description, I call that, my boy. I know your 
performer. It is the green grasshopper, or to 
be more exact, that particular one of the green 
grasshoppers known as the ‘ Longhorn,’ so called 
because her feelers are so much longer than her 
body. She has one eye on her notes, and the 
other alert for passing prey. And every few 
minutes she interrupts herself to spring out and 
disembowel a victim. An extremely courageous 
huntress is she; for her prey is that colossus in 
the insect world which we erroneously term the 
locust. In truth, the green grasshoppers them¬ 
selves belong to the locust family; our ‘locust’ 
